San Francisco

Hi!

My first week of work was great, but exhausting! I have a wide variety of students of different levels and abilities, which keeps me on my toes. Now that I've settled back into life in Japan I thought it was time to let you know about my trip to North America. It is strange to think of it as a trip: when I went through Canadian customs they made me check off 'visitor' instead of 'resident'!

San Francisco was wonderful. The first five days I was there were sunny and gorgeous (the rain started on the day of the wedding). Camille had everything under control so instead of frantically helping with last minute wedding details I got to relax and be pampered. Camille referred to us as "lady's of leisure", since we spent our days getting our hair and nails done, having my dress fitted and having lunch with other ladies. I was the first out-of-town guest to arrive, which was great since I was able to spend lots of time with Camille, Alek and their families.

As some of you know, Camille has a design degree from Carnegie Mellon and every aspect of the wedding was beautifully done. As you can see the bride's maids dresses were gorgeous and she made jewelery for each of us that matched perfectly. The bridesmaids spent he night before the wedding icing the cake (and cupcakes) and making the bouquets and centre pieces. It was great to be part of the wedding. For those of you who don't know, Camille is one of my oldest friends--as our parents like to say "We've been friends since before we were born and our mom's were pregnant with us."

We went to Japan town for the Bachelorette party and sang karaoke in a private booth (which is very Japanese--think Lost In Translation). We had a fabulous time and sang lots of old school songs--the karaoke bars in Japan actually have a better, more up-to-date selection of English music! Since I thought it was hilarious that I went all the way to SF to hang out in Japan town, I dragged the girls around (in our heels) to take pictures of us in front of Japanese things, see attached photos.

My plan was to do some sightseeing the day after the wedding, but it rained so hard that we were soaked through in five minutes and decided to abandon the tourist attempt. Luckily, I was in Victoria for Tourist in Your Own Town and Jamie bought me a ticket for my Birthday. I spent my time in Canada visiting, eating my favorite foods and seeing the sites.

Wow, it was hard to choose which pictures to post since I took 300 :)

I was bumped up to Executive Class (or Eguzekuteibu kurasu, in Japanese) on my flight home, which was a wonderfully comfortable treat!

Colin is planning on posting a blog tomorrow since it is a National holiday and he has the day off. He took me to an amazing onsen when I came back, it was gorgeous.

Love Maddy.

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